Comfort Zone
by EmeraldMoonStar
Summary: A mission gone awry puts Sasuke and Sakura in a very uncomfortable position. After all, Sasuke's barely comfortable being in his own body, let alone someone else's.
1. Chapter 1

**It is almost four in the morning my time, and I finally decided that getting an idea that's been in my head for years should happen right now. Let the madness ensue.**

* * *

Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke had never been particularly close to each other, to an outsider's eye. The two of them never hung out alone, did not share secrets nor confide in each other often. However, in their own unique way, they were friends. Nowhere near as close of friends as he was to Uzumaki Naruto, but the next closest friend he had.

Certainly not close enough to be remotely comfortable with the situation they were currently in.

It had been a relatively simply mission, really: find and retrieve target. A typical mission that the two would be assigned, as they worked remarkably well together. As luck would have it, Sakura's chakra was water type, which, when combined with Sasuke's lightning based attacks, the two were a force to be reckoned with. Considering how smart the teammates were, it was mere days before they thought to combine jutsus and they had been partnered on missions almost immediately afterward to unleash havoc on Konoha's enemies. Their teamwork was part of the reason Sasuke was let off parole as early as he was after turning himself in. That, and assisting the Shinobi Alliance didn't hurt, either.

This mission, however, had gone haywire. Unfortunately, there had been little information on the target's abilities, so Sasuke and Sakura were forced into battle blind in a sense. It hadn't been a remarkable battle, until their foe released a jutsu that neither had ever seen before. They both managed a combination attack before the jutsu had set hold to incapacitate their enemy. Both stared at the unconscious figure.

Still looking at it, Sakura remarked, "Well, that was weird. Sasuke-kun, are you alright?"

Without looking at her, he replied, "Ah."

At the same time, as if on cue, the two turned to each other and both experienced the same sensation. They both felt that they were looking into a mirror. Sasuke saw a look of unmasked shock reflected on his face and raised both of his eyebrows in surprise. Sakura, on the other hand, saw herself with a strangely impassive looked on her face.

She reacted first and began staring at her hands and flipping them over and over. "Those aren't my hands..." Frantically, Sakura flung her hands to her face and felt for familiar feature, only to find none. Upon this, looked at Sasuke to find him staring at his nails with the most confused expression on his face.

"Sasuke-kun..."

"Sakura, why am I wearing purple nail polish?" He spoke quietly and if in danger of going on a rampage at any second. Sakura slowly scooted over towards him and took his hand gently.

"Because I painted my nails last night." She now looked up from their intertwined hands to make eye contact. "Sasuke-kun, we've switched bodies."

* * *

The tortured teens spent the next hour trying everything they could think of to return to their respective bodies, but to no avail; the situation was no better. All that was gained were a few bruises in trying Sasuke's idea of beating themselves out of the other.

Sakura flopped to the ground, defeated. "Oh, what are we going to do? I can't go home as you!" He sent her a glare. "No one is going to believe us if we go to the hospital like this, not even Tsunade-shishou." She allowed her forehead to drop to the ground in aggravation.

Sasuke rubbed his temples, looking more annoyed than he had the time Naruto had spilled ramen in his lap. Sasuke wasn't allowed to pummel him as they were on an undercover mission and had been in a positively foul mood the rest of the night. "We aren't going to tell anyone," he explained tiredly. "We are going to wait this out until you figure out how to fix it."

Sakura lifted her head up, confused. "Why do I have to fix it?"

"Because you're the medical ninja and have access to more files in Hokage Tower than I do." Sasuke scowled a little when he thought of just how many files were rumored to be in there.

"So," Sakura spoke very slowly, "Let me get this straight, you want to go back in this...state, and pretend that you are me and I am you?"

Sasuke cringed at seeing such open emotion on his face and nodded. Sakura tilted her head inquisitively. "How is this going to work? There's no way you can be me!" He narrowed his eyes at her challengingly.

"What makes you say that?

"How do you expect to work at the hospital?"

He frowned and lacking a valid response, answered with a question. "How do _you_ expect anyone to believe that you're me?"

Sakura sneered and seeing his signature expression on him for the first time in his life filled Sasuke with an unidentifiable sensation. "You think that's difficult? I just have to stop talking."

"As if you could do that," he grumbled. "Besides, I'm not pretending to be you. Ino is annoying." A mental image of having a sleepover with Ino flashed through his mind and he cringed inwardly.'

Sakura sighed before replying. He did have a point, there's no way Sasuke would be fooling anyone. Everyone would think Sakura had gone crazy if she suddenly stopped talking and her bedside manner went out the window. "We can't tell anyone, and not telling anyone isn't an option either." She sighed again. "I guess we will go report to Tsunade-shishou, leaving this incident out, and go from there."

"Hn."

* * *

After having a slow trip back to Konoha (changes in leg length really mess up one's movement and causes much tripping) and the report given and no one suspecting that anything was amiss, the two headed back towards Sakura's apartment to work out the finer details of their arrangement of sorts. Upon arriving, Sasuke was instantly made aware of a problem he had somehow overlooked. "Sasuke-kun, just head to my room, I'll be there in a minute."

"Why?"

"I have to go to the bathroom," she replied, nonchalantly, as though it wasn't an issue at all. Sasuke, meanwhile, was panicking silently. He was not open, by any means. Having someone else being able to see any part of his body at any time was a terrifying prospect. He had nothing to hide or be ashamed of, but he was a modest person at heart and was not looking forward to when Sakura decided to shower. She started walking down the hall and before stepping into the bathroom hesitated to say, "Oh, and since I'm a medic, the male body isn't anything I haven't seen before." She shut the door before Sasuke even had time to react.

Meanwhile, after shutting the door, Sakura just remembered that if this situation wasn't taken care of by the end of the week, Sasuke was going to have the most miserable surprise of his life and was trying to laugh at the thought of Sasuke having to deal with being a woman. Boy, did he have a lot to learn.

* * *

Sasuke slowly became less awkward in, well, _her_ skin as the day went on. After being shown how to put a bra on, he just suffered in silence and decided to cooperate. Being spared the makeup lecture, he learned all about clothing, her beauty regime, and where everything was located in her room. It was more than he had ever wanted to know about Sakura and the thought of trying to deal with all this hair while showering sounded downright dreadful.

Now that it was early evening, Sakura yawned. "Well, I think that's about all you absolutely need to at the moment." She stood up and walked towards the door.

Sasuke stared at her. "Where are you going?"

"Back to your house, silly. People would kind ofa notice if Uchiha Sasuke spent the night with Haruno Sakura." She giggled at the image of Ino's face when that news reached her.

"Isn't there anything you would like to know," Sasuke muttered half to himself. Sakura just shook her head at him.

"You're a guy, Sasuke-kun, how hard can it be?"

* * *

**Very cliche idea, I know, but I would still find it amusing. And I haven't stumbled across a SasuSaku body switch story anywhere. Anyway, review and let me know what you think!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**This is an absolute pain to write, as it is difficult to emphasize the fact that they are in the wrong bodies. No wonder no one has tried this. Well, guys, I'm gonna try, wish me luck.**

* * *

Sasuke was pacing around Sakura's room at a loss of what to do. No wonder Sakura had gotten less training in when they were genin; she didn't have a training grounds on her back porch. She didn't have a back porch at all, living near the center of Konoha. He glanced at himself in the mirror and huffed uncharacteristically at the ruffled girl that looked back at him. He then walked out on the balcony, just for something to look at besides the mirror.

As he shut the glass door to the inside, he was met with an aurora of color. Even well inside the city, the sunset still looked remarkable with all the orange and pinks bleeding across the sky. He sighed a bit before sitting down to watch the citizens go about their business. After all, if he couldn't train and was avoiding starting the next day, what else could he do? He sat there contemplating exactly how to go about tomorrow for seemingly hours.

Feeling unusually restless, he decided that glancing through Sakura's book collection would keep him occupied. Giving the massive bookshelf a once over, Sasuke settled down to read. Perhaps there would be something on foreign jutsus that would help them out of their predicament.

The same thought had occurred to Sakura, so instead of heading to the Uchiha compound, she had gone straight to the library, grabbed a small mountain of medical tomes, and begun to absorb the text in a way only she could. And they said having brains didn't count for anything. She had to admit, though, carrying all those books without her usual strength had been rather annoying, though the extra height hadn't been an unwelcome surprise. And while being able to go around without a bra was rather freeing, having something else entirely to worry about had not been a pleasant discovery. How men dealt with this was beyond her.

After hours of fruitless research, Sakura returned the books and had to remind herself not to run on autopilot and go to her home, but to instead go to the Uchiha compound. She had been there plenty of times with Naruto, so it was not entirely unfamiliar to her. Still though, it took her a few minutes to locate Sasuke's pajama pants and towels before heading to the shower while all the while reminding herself to just be objective. Wash self, or well, him, and get out and get dressed. No looking more than necessary.

She had done pretty well too, not looking and all. She made it through shampoo and conditioner (Sasuke-kun uses conditioner?) and washing his face without a hitch. Washing his chest had taken a lot of self control, but when she got to his abs, she lost it and found herself making up excuses to run her hands over them again and again and again.

Sasuke too was having difficulties in the shower, but for other reasons entirely. "How the hell does she shave the back of her knees?!" After the third nick, and the water starting to turn orange, Sasuke gave up on shaving and figured that Sakura would either have to come do it herself, or he could just wear pants until this situation was remedied. He was doing better about not looking than she was, though, resolving to just close his eyes and not focus on what he was touching and stare straight ahead while getting his hands tangled during shampooing. Deciding that long hair was attractive was not one of his better days. He actually felt a brief pang of sympathy when he thought of all the girls that went through this torture to gain his affections. Once he reached the conditioner and felt how silky his now petal pink hair felt, he deemed that little Sasuke had indeed been on to something. As impractical as her hair was, Sasuke never could deny that it was a breath of fresh air from all the blondes, fake blondes, too dark brunettes, and redheads everywhere. He suspected she had figured it out when he had never commented on her hair, other than the time in the Forest of Death when most of it was strewn all over the ground, and had never teased her about it when they were children. Sasuke then shook his head to clear these thoughts out of his mind. He had bigger problems than Sakura's hair, namely, trying to sleep.

Sleeping was where the problems had begun. Absolutely no position felt comfortable. Suddenly having hips made laying on his side feel bizarre, face down was flat out painful for reasons he refused to think about, and laying on his back just made the lower part ache. To top it off, Sakura's petite frame produces much less heat than his body and he was shivering involuntarily. Sasuke snarled before angrily stuffing the pillow over his head and refusing to move any longer. Maybe he'd be lucky and suffocate into unconsciousness.

Bright pink from embarrassment, Sakura speedily finished her shower before throwing on Sasuke's boxers and pajama pants and marching into his bedroom without an indecent thought about him. She did, however, allow herself to sigh contentedly as she curled up under the covers and breathed in his scent. She fell asleep soon after with a smile on her face despite it all.

* * *

They had both agreed to meet in the training grounds in the Uchiha compound to avoid running into Naruto until they could at least utilize chakra and figure out just how the situation with jutsus worked. Sakura woke up well rested and pretty content given the circumstances. She wandered over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to see what her options were for breakfast.

Tomatoes.

Nothing but tomatoes.

It took her a few seconds to realize just what this meant before scowling and beginning to dig for a frying pan. At least she'd cook them before dealing with this sad breakfast and she vowed to later go to the market to get Sasuke a more balanced diet, if she could accomplish nothing else. After slicing and frying up two tomatoes, there was a banging at the front door. Hurrying over, Sakura was met with her own disgruntled appearance and lacking the usual spark in her eye.

"Ohayo, Sasuke-kun, did you sleep well?" She tilted her head at him, inspecting her appearance. She was in all the correct clothing and looked to have all of her supplies, but her gait was awkward and her hair definitely needed some serum this morning. Walking in her boots had to have been difficult for him at first.

"Hn." Before walking in to his own house, he grabbed Sakura's wrist. "These," he pointed vaguely at her chest while refusing to look at her. "Why didn't you warn me?"

Turning redder than the tomatoes she just cut, Sakura decided to play dumb. "What about, ah, them?" Feeling rather cruel, probably from the lack of a proper breakfast, she continued, "Do they displease you?"

He sent her a glare, which was much less intimidating on her features, before replying. "It hurts to walk without a...with just a shirt on." He looked adorably grouchy about the fact, as though someone had eaten the last cookie.

Sakura giggled, "Oh, I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun! I didn't even think to tell you about that." She moved to the side of the door and beckoned him inside. "Go to the kitchen, I've just made breakfast."

After a breakfast consisting of a silent Sasuke secretly enjoying his tomatoes being cooked in herbs he had never thought to put together and Sakura lecturing him on what a proper diet consists of, the two headed towards the private Uchiha training grounds and got straight to business. They tried a few basic jutsu to make sure they could continue to mold chakra correctly and when that was the case, they went more into specifics.

Sakura walked over to Sasuke and punched him as hard as she could in the jaw. Taken completely off guard, he didn't attempt to block and went flying across the clearing, failed to right himself due to the unfamiliar body, and landed with an unceremonious thump. She sprinted over to him in horror. "Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun, I'm so sorry, I didn't think I'd still have my strength when I hit you!" He sat up rubbing his jaw while eyeing her warily. She slowly raised her hand before placing it on his jaw gently. "Now we get to see if I can still do medical ninjutsu." Focusing her chakra, she sent a small wave of what she intended as healing chakra into Sasuke's, or her, jaw. When he didn't jump, she took that as a good sign and began repairing the damage. After all, she didn't want to have a damaged jaw when the time came to return to her body.

Jaw fully healed, Sasuke stood up and attempted his clan's signature jutsu. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" However, instead of a massive ball of fire, Sasuke began spitting water and started to cough. Sakura rushed over and rubbed his back in a soothing fashion until he ceased. "Sakura," he began, sounding almost livid, "what just happened?"

"I was afraid of this," she sighed. "While we can still do basic jutsu and I can still use medical ninjutsu, all of our elemental ninjutsu won't work correctly." He raised an eyebrow, demanding she elaborate. "Okay, your chakra is fire and lightning based, while mine is water. Our chakra didn't transfer bodies, so if I were to try my water jutsus, either nothing would happened, or it'd release fire or lightning instead. Whereas if you tried fire or lightning, you'd get water."

He nodded in understanding. "So, we have to relearn each other's jutsu," he stated slowly, hating the sound of this more every minute. She nodded quickly. "I'll teach you first."

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn?"

"How do I activate your Sharingan?"

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**Yep, I figure if I'm going to do this, I'm going to get into the nitty gritty of it all. Sasuke has to deal with boobs and Sakura's trials have only just begun. Review and let me know what you're thinking!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**This has to be record fast updating for me. For whatever reason, I'm not having trouble writing. Oh well, here's the next installment.**

* * *

"Sasuke-kun, it's not working."

"You're not focusing hard enough."

"I could focus chakra better than you and Naruto put together when I was twelve. Focusing isn't the issue!"

While initially Sasuke had had the rockier start when it came to jutsu, he had eventually figured out how to work with Sakura's water based chakra. While he still had trouble with the higher ranked water jutsus that she knew, such as Daibakufu no Jutsu, and felt like he was drowning and throwing up at the same time at every technique, he had gotten the basic idea down in about an hour. He didn't have the chakra control for super strength and medical ninjutsu, however. Sakura had had some difficulty escaping his Suirou no Jutsu, and was forced to admit that he was indeed a prodigy. Once she escaped, it was her turn to learn. They had started with him so at least if something went wrong, she could heal him and at least one of them could learn something. After all, if he hurt her badly enough to where she couldn't heal herself, Sasuke would have a lot of explaining to do at the hospital. Namely, why Sakura suddenly was unable to heal Sasuke.

Sakura, however, was making little progress. She had spent the last forty five minutes trying to activate the Sharingan, but to no avail. She had absolutely no trouble gathering chakra to the eyes, which were shaped a little differently than her own and an abnormal optic nerve. She had to repress a shudder when she remembered that these were Itachi's eyes and tried not to think about how long he had been dead before Sasuke had decided to switch. She'd open her eyes once the chakra was there, but it wasn't appearing to make a difference; her vision was the same and she could feel the chakra just sitting there waiting to do something.

Trying his best to stay patient, Sasuke crouched down across from where Sakura was sitting crossed legged and looking like she was about to pout. Not wanting to see what that looked like on his face, Sasuke resigned himself to helping out a little more. "What is it you feel happening?"

Sakura looked a little surprised before replying. "Well, I'm gathering my chakra to my eyes, like you said, but when I open them, I'm not seeing any differently and the chakra feels as though it's just sitting there, waiting to do something. Similar to right before I attack someone." She looked down at her right hand and experimentally made a fist. "At least _that_ makes sense." She rested her fist in her lap and looked at Sasuke pleadingly, "Sasuke-kun, why do I have to activate the Sharingan? Why don't I learn some of your other jutsu that don't require it first?"

"Not having it will immediately let people know that something is wrong. That, and if you can't learn anything else before then, the Sharingan alone will increase your ability to dodge." He knew he should be feeling more annoyed than he was at the moment. Sakura was not making any progress, which was infuriating, but it wasn't for lack of trying. She had beads of sweat running down her temples just from focusing so hard on gathering chakra.

"I dodge better than you do, being a medic-nin. Plus, with your speed on top of that, I should be fine. It's you we need to worry about getting hit." He scowled at her, but didn't respond. "Besides, I can't activate this stupid doujutsu anyway!"

Cringing at hearing his own feared kekkei genkai referred to as "stupid", Sasuke pondered the situation out loud. "I can't imagine you'd have to activate it properly, since those eyes have already done it and so has my body. The chakra is the same," he trailed off uncertainly. The only thing that could even be different is the route the chakra was taking to the eyes, but if that was what was preventing Sakura from making any headway, that'd just be ridiculous.

He gave her a good natured smirk when he figured it out. "You said it felt like right before you release chakra from your fist to attack something?" She nodded, unsure of where Sasuke was going with this. "Think of it as trying to attack something with your eyes; try releasing some of the chakra gathered there while maintaining some to keep the Sharingan activated." This all came so naturally for him, it was difficult for him to actually stop and think about how he activates his signature doujutsu.

Sighing and not daring to hope for success, Sakura did as instructed. She looked into her own emerald eyes before shutting them tightly and focusing chakra to them. Nervous about releasing the chakra and scared she'd damage Sasuke's eyes unintentionally, she let out a calming breath before simultaneously opening her eyes and releasing chakra while keep a steady supply headed towards her eyes.

Sasuke fell over in shock when he saw his own Mangekyou Sharingan staring him in the eyes and felt a pang at seeing the slightly modified version of Itachi's. He'd never really gotten a good look at his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan before and now was definitely not the time. Scared that Sakura would accidentally attack him, he rolled on the balls of his feet and shook her shoulders. "Stop, Sakura, stop!"

Her eyes slowly faded back to their usual charcoal as the chakra flowed back into her core and she looked at him excited. "Oh, Sasuke-kun, something happened! I could see your basic chakra flow and saw you fall before you did, if that makes sense..." she trailed off a little. "But that sure does take a lot of chakra, how do you keep it activated for so long?"

Sasuke took his hands off of her shoulders but remained crouched opposite her. "Sakura, you used too much chakra. That wasn't the Sharingan."

"It wasn't? But I definitely felt a shift in-"

He cut her off. "That was my Mangekyou Sharingan."

She gasped in horror. "It was? But, I could have attacked you without even knowing it and wouldn't have been able to stop." He nodded. "Sasuke-kun, I think we should move on to something else."

"No. Try again, but with less chakra."

Looking uncertain, Sakura did as he requested, but dwarfed the amount of chakra she used. She was overcompensating out of fear, as her first two tries resulted in nothing but wasted chakra. On the third, however, she saw Sasuke fight off a ghost of a smile, and took that as a declaration that she had succeeded. "I did it! Sasuke-kun, I did it," she leaned over and hugged him as she cheered. She had almost forgotten that their bodies were switched and when they came into contact with each other, it felt strange to say the least. Instead of feeling Sasuke's muscles tensing underneath her slender frame, she was hugging her own softer body and feeling her curves, rather than his sturdy frame. She had her own long hair trying to get into her mouth and could smell her shampoo instead of Sasuke's distinctly masculine scent.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was trying not to fall over again at having his weight thrown at him because Sakura hadn't thought about it. She somehow managed to get his broad chest to smash uncomfortably against his now more feminine one and not having a face full of her strawberry milk colored hair just felt weird. He wrapped a much smaller arm around her in reciprocation to placate her and make her stop. She did so and on leaning back, gave him a crooked grin, "Well, that felt weird."

"Hn."

Once Sasuke figured out just how Sakura learned, teaching went much smoother. While it tested his patience more than sitting back and watching did, it yielded better results and less time spent on his part. That is, it went smoothly with every variation of Chidori, barring Kirin, of course. Radiating chakra from all over her body was something Sakura could do in her sleep. Fire jutsu raised another problem. If Sakura were to mess up, it could result in her burning her lungs. Normally, she could heal that injury to the point that she could function. However, if she burned them too badly, Sasuke would have to take her to the hospital immediately and would be forced to explain how Uchiha Sasuke had managed to hurt himself this severely on a jutsu he could use at age eight and why Haruno Sakura could do nothing but watch.

He understood her concern, really he did, but fire jutsus just were not that difficult. He'd ended up with a few burns around his mouth, yes, but no horrific damage. Besides, even if she did burn her skin, she could just heal it anyway. "Sakura, just treat it like any of your water jutsus. Except instead of drowning and vomiting, you'll feel a burn that is desperate to escape." He'd never be a jounin sensei; teaching was far too annoying. Sakura was a quick learner and willing and that was irritating enough. A bunch of dropout genin would end up Chidoried before the end of the bell test.

Not at all feeing comfortable with the idea, half expecting charred lungs and the other half expecting some weird Chidori breath, Sakura filled her chest with chakra until it felt that it would scorch her chest cavity trying to escape, then blew with all the force she could muster.

Now Sasuke was beginning to get ticked, but could feel some of the irritation ebbing at the edge to allow some pride to sink in. How he had failed to notice Sakura's abilities was beyond him. She has released a fireball much larger than his own and easily rivaled Itachi's. It appeared to be much hotter than Itacih's, though, as the nearby grass was blacked just from the air around the fire. She was never one to waste an ounce of chakra, so either her water jutsus took much more chakra than he had been using, or she was a complete natural with fire, even making the best Uchiha look like amateurs. He'd be willing to bet that her second element was fire.

She turned to face him and performed a quick check of her lungs to make sure nothing was burned. The mix of their abilities, her medical ninjutsu and strength combined with his Sharingan and jutsu, was indeed monsterous. He'd love to see the look on the dobe's face if he had to face off against this. It really was a pity only he would get to see this.

"Sasuke-kun, you're looking at me funny. Is everything okay? Did I mess up?" She tilted her head, looking concerned.

"You did fine, Sakura. You did just fine."

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**I intended to make this chapter longer, but I thought this was a sufficient ending for it. Reviews are awesome and fuel updates. Just sayin'.**


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